Top Five: social networks push new shopping features

This week's top five must-know social media news come from LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Google and Pinterest.

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LinkedIn now lets you ask for a referral

Mar 26, 2018

Nearly 50 per cent of recruiters say referrals are the leading source of quality hires. And once you've asked for one and applied for the job, you're 4X more likely to hear back from a recruiter at that company. LinkedIn's new Ask For A Referral tool lets you search for jobs available in your own network and, with a click, you can ask a connection to make an introduction to the person doing the hiring.

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2

Instagram brings shopping to Canada

Mar 26, 2018

Canadians can now shop in Instagram. Businesses can tag products to lead shoppers to more information (like price and availability) and to actually make a purchase right from the Instagram app.

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3

Facebook introduces new shopping features

Mar 26, 2018

Facebook's new store sales optimization brings the power of machine learning to help retailers show ads to the people who are most likely to make an in store purchase. New templates for collections ads are designed to deliver the rich experience of print catalogues on mobile. New dynamic ad categories lets advertisers reach people earlier in their shopping journeys.

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4

Google invests in real news quality

Mar 26, 2018

In an effort to help people distinguish what's real and what's fake news, Google is launching its News Initiative. The idea is elevate and strengthen quality journalism by making adjustments to the algorithm towards more authoritative content. In addition, the program will support news organizations in evolving sustainable business models by helping them to diversify their revenue streams. A third objective is to empower news organizations via technological innovation such as supporting virtual reality and providing easy, secure connections for journalist working around the world.

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5

Pinterest is rolling out automated shopping ads

Mar 26, 2018

Pinterest is opening up shopping ads to more retailers following a successful pilot program. Most of Pinterest’s content is business related as users share products they might be interested in buying some day. Shopping Ads automatically create promoted pins from an existing product feed making advertising an effortless task for retailers.

Top Five: YouTube beats Facebook as most-used platform

The must-know social media news for the week of March 18, 2018. Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and Google all feature

1

YouTube beats out Facebook as the most widely-used social media platform

Mar 18, 2018

The Pew Research Centre's recent study looks at social network platforms' user demographics for 2018. There are quite a few surprises such has YouTube has more users than Facebook, people with higher education are more likely to be on Instagram and SnapChat counts a quarter of US adults as users (as many as LinkedIn).

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Facebook suspends Trump's analytics firm

Mar 18, 2018

In its bid to clean up its act, Facebook has suspended a data analysis firm used by Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. The social network says that Cambridge Analytica lied about keeping and using data that was accessed in ways that did not conform with Facebook's Platform Policies.

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Google improves image search

Mar 18, 2018

To improve image discovery, Google is now adding more context to the results page by including photo captions which show the the title of webpage where each image is published.

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How to brand mobile Facebook Live video streams

Mar 18, 2018

Marketers can easily add a logo and a call to action to mobile Facebook Live broadcasts. All you need is a mobile phone, a tripod and some free apps. This is a helpful how-to article.

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5

Snapchat tests @-tagging to help brands boost follower numbers

Mar 18, 2018

Snapchat is testing a new feature that will allow brands to tag someone in a Story by adding another user's handle when typing text over a photo or video. So a brand could call out an influencer making it easier for the influencer's audience to find and follow the brand. Nice one!

Instagram is testing screenshot alerts for Stories

Instagram is testing a feature that will show users when someone else takes a screenshot of their story. Prior to this test the only screenshot notifications on Instagram were when someone took a screenshot of a private direct message. Anyone could take a screenshot of someone’s photo or story without notifying the creator.

Google Analytics Introduces New 'Audiences' Report

Google is rolling out a new report in Analytics which analyzes a website’s custom audiences. Knowing how an audience is performing, or not performing, can help site owners determine how much of their time and budget should be spent marketing towards that specific segment of visitors.

Facebook Launches new Lists feature

Facebook is introducing a new feature for posting status updates, called Lists. The new feature, which begins rolling out this week, gets people to share more personal content. Suggested lists could be places you'd like to travel to or a simple to-do for the day.

I’m bringing back the weekly top five that was such a popular feature on this blog many years ago. Each week, I’ll highlight the five most important social media news stories of the week (according to me!). This week we have new innovations from Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Pinterest.

Top five: New features tools and services from the ‘Big Three’ (plus Pinterest)

Here are some of the innovations and new features introduced by Twitter, Facebook, LinkIn and Pinterest this week.

1

Twitter is introducing 'tweetstorms'

Nov 26, 2017

For those for whom 280 characters are not enough, Twitter is introducing ‘tweetstorms’! Soon long rants can be composed tweet by tweet and then published in order by clicking “Tweet All”. This is going to be a popular feature for many (I’m looking at you Donald), including brands. The new feature is being tested now and should be made available soon. This cool feature will allow longer form content onto Twitter which make it a more relevant channel for brands.

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Pinterest introduces QR type codes

Nov 26, 2017

Remember QR codes? These machine-readable labels seemed so full of promise for marketers about 10 years ago, but they never really caught on in North America. Now Pinterest is introducing its own version to help users jump easily to boards by using their smart phone cameras. This is big news for retailers and lifestyle brands wishing to boost instore sales.

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LinkedIn adds lead capture forms to InMail

Nov 26, 2017

Using LinkedIn for lead generation just got easier. The professionals’ social network is introducing lead forms for Sponsored InMails. Now with just one click, the form will be populated with a prospects name, email address and other data. Move over recruiters. LinkedIn keeps getting better and better for marketers and sales professionals.

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More Facebook Stories coming to your newsfeed

Nov 26, 2017

Stories are popular on Instagram and Snapchat, but haven’t really caught on for Facebook until now. With the introduction of a new features for use on pages, events and groups we are all going to see a lot more stories in our Facebook feeds including Stories posted to Instagram and Messenger. Ephemeral content is known for boosting audience engagement and loyalty, so watch for brands to pile in.

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Facebook Creators for video content

Nov 26, 2017

Video creators are getting a whole slew of tools and resources from Facebook. The Facebook Creator app (only on iOS) is designed for livestreaming and the website is full of how to information and tips. More evidence that Facebook is gunning for YouTube in the race for video content supremacy.

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It’s not that I don’t appreciate the hundreds of endorsements that my LinkedIn contacts have bestowed upon me. It makes me smile each time I receive a notification that someone I know and have worked with pays me the compliment of giving me an endorsement. But still, I have to say that LinkedIn endorsements are pretty much meaningless.

LinkedIn (Photo credit: Christopher S. Penn)

If that was their sole purpose, to pay a compliment, I’d say that LinkedIn endorsements are ace. But they are supposed to provide viewers of the profile a collective insight into a persons skills and experience. Endorsements fail at this task.

I have received many endorsements from people I have never worked with; even some from people I only barely know online and have never met.

I recently have received a couple of endorsements for ‘press releases’. Notwithstanding the fact that the term ‘news releases’ is the more accurate descriptor, it seems rather faint praise; if after 20 years in the profession I couldn’t handle writing a simple media advisory all the other endorsements would be rendered absurd.

I make it a policy never to endorse anyone I haven’t actually worked with and I never make an endorsement I don’t believe is accurate. I’ve had LinkedIn suggest various endorsements I should bestow on my contacts. People I know who can barely operate their own personal Facebook profiles are suggested as social media experts. Individuals in the first year of their careers are suggested as skilled in business strategy.

Other suggested skills are so vague they could mean anything. What exactly is an expert in ‘editorial’? What does an expert in ‘analysis’ actually do?

Instead, Linked In should allow users to score our contacts’ skills to provide a more accurate picture of a person’s strengths and weaknesses. For example, on a scale of one to five, how would you rate this person’s writing skills, his strategy development skills, his experience in video production, etc.

People would think twice about doling out endorsements for people they’ve never worked with for skills and experience they don’t understand and are in no position to judge.